Mobile to Take Leading Role in Christmas Day Searches

Mobile search queries in the UK could be set for a five-fold increase over Christmas day, compared to average daily rates, suggesting consumers are keen to waste no time in snagging early festive discounts.

The stats come from Bing Ads’ UK Retail Insights Report, based on research from 33% of internet retail users using the search engine in 2014, which sheds light on mobile search patterns over Christmas.

While the same report brought the hype around Black Friday and Cyber Monday last month - predicting an increase in mobile searches of over 900%, dubbing the retail checkpoint ‘Mobile Day’ - Bing Ads believes smartphones and tablets will continue to play a starring role throughout the festive period.

Appy Christmas

This is backed up by its performance last year, where over 65% of all retail searches by Brits looking to make a purchase on Christmas Day 2014 were conducted on smartphones and tablets, and nearly one in two (48%) of all searches were carried out on smartphones.

Last year mobile searches were five times greater than their normal level between 4-10pm, showing a bulk of consumers going for early for offers, while tablet searches peaked between 6-9pm at 200% above their average.

Comparatively, PC searches sat at a less impressive hump of 130% between 5-9pm.

Hollyphonic

The report also shows mobile taking the biggest share by far of searches for jewellery across all devices (72%), followed by PC (19%) and tablet (9%).

Mobile also led the retail categories of consumer electronics (48%), personal and beauty care (46%) and books (43%), while PC reclaimed the edge on home & garden and clothing & accessories searches.

What this all means, says Cedric Chambaz, European head of marketing for Bing Ads, is that retailers should be “engaging their omnichannel approach” when planning their media buys for the Christmas period.

“Offering the right content, on the right device, at the right time during the Christmas period will be crucial to tapping into the predicted 2.5% increase in retail spend totalling £42 billion this year,” adds Chambaz.